Un lungo viaggio nella notte

Everyone reading this review, please forgive me for my perhaps strange sounding english, I'm from and currently lives in China.

I saw this film today at a Local Cinema, in Dongguan, I must say I feel very fortunate having seen this, and also Jia Zhang Ke's "Ash is the Purest White" in Cinema, normally in China, we only screen Popcorn Films, but never Art films. I heard about Longest Day's Journey into the night a long time ago, when I found out this Chinese movie was competing for 2018's Cannes Un Certain Regard! By the way, the chinese name of the film, "di qiu zui hou de ye wan", actually means Earth's Last Night, or Last Night on Earth, what an awesome name!

Words cannot describe what this movie is like, or how awesome it is, At least this is so for me, I simply cannot do it with words, but I believe this actually proves how good this movie is, since if words can describe it, it wouldn't have accomplished its goal, the goal of motion picture, as a medium of art, is to express something that language cannot express, just like Beethoven's Symphonies, or Monet's paintings.

Many People won't understand this movie, because they're not Chinese, they don't understand how the subtle details in this movie reminds us of our country, and even if chinese audiences are watching it, like the few that watched it with me tonight, won't get it, because most Chinese people have almost no exposure to Art House Cinema, they usually watch 3 types of movies, Hollywood Action Flicks, Romantic Comedy, or Horror, that's it.

The Film Score in this movie is also awesome, Bela Bartok wanted to write Hungarian Themed Muisc in the western classical fasion, the soundtrack in this movie is somewhat like Bartok's, they have the same goal, this movie's music comprise of Electronic Music featuring themes in the style of music from China's minor ethnic cultures, this, plus the hour long single take dream sequence, make this film so rare a work of art, that it deserves to be charished.

Despite the dream-like scenes, and experimental techniques, the film actually captured realistically what contemporary rural china is like, which is rare, but it's nothing like our urban areas right now, if anyone wants to see a good film featuring modern china's major cities, I suggests the Chinese TV Comedy Drama: "Pretty Li Hui Zhen", it's very cheezy and childlish, but the portrayal of Shanghai is very realistic!

Thanks for reading!

Ni Guang Xin